Dwight Howard says this season was ‘like a nightmare’ after getting ejected in Lakers season-ending loss to Spurs

Pro Basketball Talk | Apr 29

Dwight Howard didn’t stick around for the end of the Lakers Game 4 loss to the Spurs on Sunday, and maybe it was just because he couldn’t wait another moment for the season to finally be behind him.

Howard picked up his second technical foul of the game with 9:51 remaining in the third quarter, and was ejected with the Spurs already leading by 21 points at the time.

It was an ignominious end to a season full of seemingly endless disappointment, and when Howard was asked to sum up his first year in Los Angeles afterward, his response was hard to dispute.

“It was like a nightmare,” Howard said. “It was like a bad dream, and we couldn’t wake up out of it. That’s what it felt like. It seemed like nothing could go right from the start — injuries and all that stuff. But we’ll get an opportunity to get some rest for guys who are injured or coming off of injuries, get a chance to rehab, and think about what we can all do to better ourselves.”

It would be easy to be disappointed in Howard for allowing himself to get frustrated to the point where he put himself in a position to where the referees could toss him. But Mike D’Antoni sympathized with his starting center, and said given the situation of both the game and the series, the frustration level was understandable.

“I hate it for him,” D’Antoni said. “He gets banged up so much in there. I’m sure he didn’t mean to [get ejected], but he takes a pounding. And after a while it gets on his nerves or whatever. But obviously we were in a deep hole anyway, so I just felt bad for him.”

When asked if he thought Howard needed to be smarter with his emotions, D’Antoni essentially said that it’s easier said than done.

“Understand it’s easy when you sit there like us and just watch, but when you’re playing you’ve got your line of adrenaline going,” D’Antoni said. “It’s a hard situation, and obviously it wouldn’t have happened if the series was a bit different.”

Howard didn’t want to talk about what specifically led to the ejection, but did admit he needs to work on controlling his temper in certain situations.